Using History to Understand the Consensual Forest Management Model in the Terai, Nepal1
Looking Back to Move Forward: Using History to Understand the Consensual Forest Management Model in the Terai, Nepal1 Poshendra Satyal Pravat long struggle has been going on world- wide between the state, local people and various stakeholders over the control, management and use of forest and land resources. In particular, in the history of many agrarian political economies of the developing world there have been confl icts over forest resources between local people A and the state. An analysis of historical pat- terns of annexation of forest and land by the state and the resultant struggles by local people against state takeover is fundamental to understand the emergence of various debates around global forest management.2 For most of the twentieth century, the dominant ap- proach to conservation of forest and, in general, natural resources was to exclude people from ‘natural’ places and restrict access to, and use and control of, these places by local populations. In the later dec- ades of the twentieth century, the role of powerful and centralised state agencies in forest management began to be questioned, and there were increasing calls for public involvement and participation (under diff erent names and according to diff erent models of forest management, such as participatory management, community for- estry, co-management, collaborative management, joint forest man- agement etc.). As a result, a variety of forest management policies and practices currently exist worldwide, sometimes in direct confl ict with one another, at other times coexisting without friction. Th ese policies and practices have been constantly rearticulated and trans- formed historically in response to wider changes in political, eco- nomic, social and natural environments.3 Th ey have also had various impacts on forests, forest-dependent people, local users, and other stakeholders.
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