Community Forestry Federation in Democratising Forest Governance Lessons from Nepal FECOFUN

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Community Forestry Federation in Democratising
Forest Governance Lessons from Nepal FECOFUN

• Hemant Ojha ForestAction
• (ojhahemant1_at_gmail.com)
• Hari Sharma - Social Science BAHA
• Dil Raj Khanal - FECOFUN
• Bharati Pathak - FECOFUN
• Hari Dhungana -FECOFUN
• Ghan Shyam Pandey - FECOFUN
• Bhola Bhattarai - FECOFUN

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Overview

• Federation of Community Forestry Users, Nepal
• What?
• When?
• How?
• What outcomes?
• Lessons?
• Basis of the paper
• Reflexivity of the practitioners
• Collaborative Research
• Negotiated knowledge

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Federation of Community Forestry Users, Nepal
(FECOFUN) what is it?

• Network of forest users group about 15
  thousands groups affiliated
• Largest civil society network in Nepal covers
  all but two districts
• Key player in forest sector governance and
  political movement
• Defenders of community rights on forestry

Newly Elected Central FECOFUN members
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Federation structure
Periodic Assemblies
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How did FECOFUN emerge in Nepal?

• Space
• Representative democracy (1990) and its
  constitutional framework
• Forest Act 1993
• Initiators Community forestry user group
  leaders, activists, donor projects, progressive
  foresters
• Supporters donor projects, intellectuals,
  activists
• Opponents traditional foresters

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FECOFUNs Identity

• Donors strong pillar of good governance,
  extensive channel of dissemination, source of
  legitimacy for donor activity
• Advocacy NGOs frontline lobbyist for policy,
  raises legitimacy for funding
• Technical NGOs service delivery vehicle, raises
  legitimacy for funding
• Political parties important political space to
  influence
• Govt bureaucracy permanent opposition to
  government decisions and policies

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What does FECOFUN do?

• Promote civil and political right agenda on
  forestry
• Create civic resistance to non-democratic policy
  processes/decisions
• Augment service delivery
• Contribute to policy development
• Contribute to implementation of good policies
• Influence national/ international /conceptual
  discourse (e.g global alliance)

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Strategies - How does FECOFUN act?

• Movement when dialogues fail
• Lobbying/networking/ partnership for democratic
  change
• Communication /dissemination/discursive
  participation for wider awareness
• Empowering the members to claim their space
• Service delivery to tie livelihoods concerns with
  democratising of forest
• Action research to test new innovations

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Impact

• Democracy/Inclusion
• Protection of rights of local communities
  (constitutional, legal, customary)
• Checking policy regression
• Development of thousands of civil society
  activists in forestry at different levels
• Challenging techno-bureaucratic mindsets (doxa)
  and practices
• Active participation in Nepals democratic and
  social movements
• Livelihoods both wider policy reform and
  specific practical innovations, e.g
• Reduction of taxes
• Increasing CFUG budget allocation to poor
• Grafting leasehold concept in community forestry
• Development of pro-poor enterprises
• Promotion of forest product markets/certification
  

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What Challenges FECOFUN is Facing (1)?

• Responding to crisis of space
• Crisis Shifting discourse of governance from
  representative democracy to inclusive democracy
• Response Balancing gender, Proportional
  representation in federation structures etc
• Crisis Changing policy discourse from one form
  of community forestry to multiple models of
  community based forest management?
• Response Membership to other CF models
  (leasehold, buffer zone, religious etc),
  Innovating CF model to include distant users in
  Terai
• Crisis Madhesi movement and construction of CF
  as Pahade (Hill residents program)
• Response ???

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What Challenges FECOFUN is Facing (2)?

• Refining institutional structure Network?
  Federation? Unitary Organization? Social
  Movement?
• Ensuring healthy/fair internal collaboration/compe
  tition among leaders
• Streamlining the agenda of equity, inclusion,
  poverty reduction
• Pioneer network to initiate inclusive processes
• Enhancing capacity
• Becoming a learning organization/network
• Dependence on donors mobilising member
  contributions?
• Planning versus reactive campaigns
• Making internal governance transparent
• Balancing movement/campaigns and projects?

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Lessons (1)

• Common property natural resource management
  federation are crucial part multi-scale forest
  governance
• One-off legal/policy reform is not enough need
  for constant civil society activism
• Federation attractive symbolic space for
  activists
• Federation building can expand from a small
  scale to large scale if leaders, supporters work
  together

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Lessons (2)

• Danger of cooptation of the space from
  bureaucracy, politicians, donors and NGOs
• Support is crucial organizational capacity
  building and financial resources?
• Organization itself (defensive routines)
  becomes a constraint to learning and
  transformation
• One federation triggers other federations (e.g
  water users)

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How does FECOFUN look like on September 6, 2017?

• Hard to predict
• Scenario 1 Inclusive FECOFUN with significant
  member contributions, with all major political
  parties recognizing FECOFUN as a relatively
  independent civil society arena
• Scenario 2 Internal competitions/interactions
  become extremely complex, get politically
  polarised, and more or less equally strong
  multiple federations emerge
• Scenario 3 Overly NGOsiation and projectisation
  of FECOFUN but less professional capacity to
  self-governance in this model
• In any case, some form of federation will
  continue to exist, as long as basic
  constitutional rights are not alienated

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Theoretical Reflections and Policy Implications

• Common property resource governance -
• go higher up in the scale beyond user group
• User group without strong federation are
  susceptible to colonising forces state, markets
  etc.
• Democracy deepening deliberation with civil
  society
• Technocracy democratising knowledge
• Civil society the promise is not lost yet!
• Development - bring more politics
• Social Movement inevitable for change!
• Powerful actors never compromise until threatened
  
• Poverty reduction states and donors cannot
  reach directly the poor without (elite) civil
  society intermediaries

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Thank You