KATHMANDU — A decade ago, people from Salija village in western Nepal traveled several hours into the uphill forests to gather firewood and feed for their livestock, Shakhamani Khorja recalls.

“[Now], we have a forest growing on about 13 hectares [32 acres] of land less than a kilometer [0.6 miles] away that helps meet our needs for fuelwood and animal feed,” says Khorja, a Salija local and a member of a community forest group.

As part of a reforestation project that began in 2010, local communities in six study sites across the western Gandaki province planted 131,186 native trees on a total of about 76 hectares (187 acres) of government-owned land.

Nearly a decade after the reforestation project, researchers found that the density of vegetation, analyzed using a satellite imagery tool — known as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) — consistently increased in all six study sites since the project ended in 2016, suggesting increased canopy cover as trees continue to grow. According to NDVI metrics, vegetation improved from 0.0341 in value in 2018 (suggesting sparse vegetation) to 0.0737 in value in 2022 (meaning highly dense vegetation).

This reforestation of native species, says Korja, was necessary not only due to their gradual decline because of climatic factors impacting natural growth, but also to support communities with non-timber resources that could build local enterprises, like selling lokta paper produced using material from the lokta plant (Daphne bholua), also called the Nepalese paper plant.

According to the authors of the study published in Mountain Research and Development, the use of the community’s ecological knowledge, like selecting the best plant species according to soil type and their economic needs, contributed to the success of the project.

The researchers, from the Institute for Himalayan Conservation (IHC), a Japan-based NGO, say that the improved vegetation health and density also suggest there’s improved soil nutrients and increased organic carbon storage.

“These factors contribute to long-term forest regeneration by facilitating nutrient cycling, stabilizing soil, and promoting sustained vegetation growth,” stated the study, published in the BioOne journal.

Local knowledge

Teruyuki Takahashi, one of the researchers, says that the team examined the causal relationship between local ecological knowledge and vegetation recovery to examine if the community’s knowledge played any role in reforestation and vegetation recovery.

While their findings point to improved reforestation impacts, one caveat of the study is that it took project sites that underwent reforestation while integrating local ecological knowledge and compared them with areas without reforestation. A more accurate analysis would be to compare reforestation sites with and without the integration of local ecological knowledge, the authors said in the study.

“As the data showed, integrating ecological knowledge was highly effective for long-term forest regeneration, but we have not studied how this knowledge has been effective,” Takahashi tells Mongabay. The impact of the local community’s ecological knowledge during the project “was crucial as local people in these study sites held the best knowledge of weather, topography, soil characteristics and elevation that were suitable for native species selection and plantation.”

The other author, Takuya Soma, an associate professor at Kyoto University in Japan, says that the project set up local forest committees that included community members who led the selection and planting of native tree species depending on soil types and what was economically beneficial to them. “The project supported monthly salaries [at] the nursery in charge, provided equipment and seedlings used for the reforestation, while the community people worked voluntarily,” he tells Mongabay.

By the end of the project in 2016, the community had planted a variety of 44 species that were selected based on their ecological knowledge of what grows better in the soils and alongside other plants. Khorja, who is also in charge of the nursery, says that, of the native trees planted — including the nationally protected tree species like loth salla (Taxus wallichiana, or the Himalayan yew) and economically valuable ones like timur (Zanthoxylum armatum, or rattan pepper) and sirmu (Michelia excelsa) — most of the trees survived except for a few.

He says that the nursery, where the seeds are first planted and taken care of, was key to growing saplings of threatened species like loth salla, timur and sirmu, which usually struggled to thrive in their natural conditions.

The communities in Salija, Khorja says, planted lokta, utis (Alnus nepalensis, a type of alder) and three pine tree species, among others.

“Not only are the native species resilient and easier to grow, but they are a good source of firewood and have monetary value,” he explains.

Pushing effort on the ground

According to a study published in the Geographical Journal of Nepal, despite the gaps in governance and benefit sharing, community forests in Nepal have significantly contributed to improving the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities while ensuring ecological conservation.

In the Salija case, people continue to grow seedlings themselves despite the official end of the reforestation project. This is done on private lands, explains Khorja, because they have run out of space on public lands and the community lacks land titles on these spaces.

“Since the project ended, we have planted about 8,000 trees of mainly five native species so far, including raikhanyu [Ficus semicordata, or the drooping fig], nimaro [Ficus auriculata, or the elephant ear fig], patle salla [Pinus patula, or the patula pine],” says Khorja.

However, another study published in ScienceDirect also shows that local people’s participation and collective action in community forest management is declining.

Salija is no exception. As the project phased out, Singh says that only a few people managed to make some money from selling lokta paper notebooks, which are sold both domestically and internationally. These books are made from the inner bark of the lokta plant that locals grow for commercial papermaking.

“The local business has slowed down for a few years due to the lack of funds and resources,” says Pratap Singh Pun, secretary of the Salija community forest nursery management committee. “Since the local people are engaged in farming for their livelihoods, they find commercial papermaking business less profitable to switch into it.”

But, Singh says, it doesn’t have to all go down from here. Despite youth leaving the region for better job opportunities and a loss of traditional knowledge, community participation in local enterprises can increase if the local government provides enough incentives for local businesses, nurseries and forest management.

“Lokta plant grows and regenerates within a few years of harvesting. Upon upscaling the local business, it can open ways and opportunities for young people to return home,” Singh says.

But, amid this struggle, people in the community are trying their hands at other alternatives like making textiles from the allo plant (Girardinia diversifolia), also known as Himalayan giant nettle.

“We, as a community, take care of the forests and so it gives back to us. And through these local businesses, we want to ensure that this exchange is sustainable,” Singh tells Mongabay.

Banner image: The Nepalese paper plant is used to make the traditional lokta paper. Image by Cyril Gros via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

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Citations:

Takahashi, T., & Soma, T. (2025). Local Ecological Knowledge, Reforestation, and Vegetation Recovery: A Remote Sensing Based Assessment in Gandaki Province, Nepal. BioOne, Mountain Research and Development, 45(1). D14-D24. doi:10.1659/mrd.2024.00015

Pokhrel, R.K., & Gautam, A.P. (2024). Community forest, environment conservation and rural livelihood. Geographical Journal of Nepal, 17. doi:10.3126/gjn.v17i01.63945

Laudari, H.K., Sapkota, L.M., Maraseni, T., … Volkova, L. (2024). Community forestry in a changing context: A perspective from Nepal’s mid-hill. ScienceDirect, 138. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.107018