Community Forestry in Bhutan - Exploring Opportunities and Facing Challenges Paper for the Community Forestry International Workshop, Pokhara, Nepal, 15-18 September 2009

In Bhutan, Community Forestry (CF) began to emerge as a definitive programme around the year 2000, with rapid expansion after 2007. Over the yea rs since the nationalisation of forests in 1969, Bhutanese policy-makers and foresters came to reali se that participation of local communities is key to conservation and sustainable management of fores t resources. While in the beginning, CF was primarily promoted to ensure forest protection, it is now increasingly viewed as a means to improve rural livelihoods and contribute to poverty reducti on, which is consistent with the 10 th Five Year Plan (2008-2013) of the Royal Government of Bhutan (RGo B) which has poverty reduction as its primary goal.. CF is still relatively new to Bhutan. This gives th e Bhutanese a unique opportunity to learn from the successes and difficulties that their neighbours ha ve experienced and to create an approach most appropriate to the local context. As of July 2009, there were 173 community forests covering an area of 21,025 ha and involving approx. 8,650 households . This constitutes still less than 1% of the national forest land, but is - given the growing in terest in CF amongst rural communities - likely to expand substantially in future. This paper shows that the decentralisation of fores try extension to the district level and the stepwise development of a legal framework for CF have been e ssential for the successful evolution of the state- community partnership in CF. Adapting the legal fra mework to take the experience gained and upcoming new issues into account, liberalising the rules in place and simplifying planning procedures and technical provisions for CF are important curre nt challenges for the programme. Over the coming years, the CF programme will increa singly explore opportunities to generate economic and social benefits from active resource m anagement. With the change of emphasis towards more social and economic questions the programme fa ces challenges on how to address, in an operational way, issues such as governance, equity and gender, income generation and poverty reduction. 1 Bhutan Bhutan lies in the Eastern Himalaya between China and India. It covers a total area of 38,394 sq. km with rugged mountains. The country is endowed with rich renewable natural resources. About 69% of Bhutan's population lives in rural areas and agricu lture and forests are a major source of their