As the start of this paper we argued that understanding access to natural resources in mountain areas necessitates a combined actor- and innovations-oriented, location- and time-specific analysis. This is especially so if the analysis is concerned with policy and development issues that focus on poverty alleviation and social inclusion.
We chose a specific country over a specific period of time to illustrate our argument. We find that policy processes and development practice are driven by diverse sets of actors. In general, we see that any policy and development planning that concerns access to natural resources that is not informed by similar types of analysis may well be unhelpful and, more importantly, counter-productive to improving access to natural resources by socially excluded groups. Hence, our first suggestion is that capacities to conduct this type of research and analysis be strengthened in organizations and institutions that wish to influence policy processes and be responsible for their actions.
The Nepal case studies dramatically illustrate how issues concerning access to natural resource have changed dramatically over a period of time as short as a decade. For example, the rise of FECOFUN and NEFUG has meant that policy processes have been affected in substantial ways by the growth of these new civil society federations. Now, these sorts of organizations bring people’s participation and ‘voice’ to the fore in ways hitherto unforeseen.
Similarly, the development of markets in the last few years for mountain-sourced horticultural products, timber and alternative forest resources (AFRs) such as medicinal plants, lokta bark, etc. has also changed the way that various actors perceive and pursue access to forest resources. Nepal has recently joined the WTO, and the government must now deal with the implications of patent legislation and trade in resources and products emanating from the mountains, as well as addressing more carefully who benefits from the development of these market chains. In large, powerful countries patenting and sui generis issues would, of course, be treated in a totally different fashion than in a small country such as Nepal.
These are just a few illustration to show that analyses carried out on access, poverty-alleviation and social exclusion issues even as recently as ten years ago may have only minor relevance to the policy debates and practices of today. This implies that a new approach to the so-called ‘second generation’ issues - e.g., access, equity, empowerment, inclusion, etc. - must now be addressed in forestry and other sectors.[32] For some policy and development, so-called ‘second generation’ issues were predictable outcomes of earlier policy processes, rather than ‘unexpected’ second generation problems.
This report concentrates on the forestry sector as an important illustration of what issues need to be analysed in any study of natural resources access. We argue, however, that each sector must be analysed in a similar way, but that the analysis has to recognise not only the natural resources and socio-economic diversity issues but also the diversity of government, civil society and private sector actors present at a given time. In each sector there is a different set of actors in the innovation system. The importance of this actor diversity is highlighted in the following examples:
Water Resources
A major natural resource in the mountains is water that is used as a source of energy, for irrigation, drinking water, etc. As in the forestry sector, there is also a national federation for irrigation user groups: the National Federation of Irrigation Water Users Associations, Nepal (NFIWUAN). This federation, however, plays a very different role in the policy and development practice arena as compared to FECOFUN. Donor-funded projects and programmes in the irrigation and energy sectors bring with them a quite different set of aid actors, service providers, government policies and types and extent of rent-seeking behaviours, as well as different sets of issues to confront, as compared, for example, with the forestry sector. Consequently, we argue that the water resources sector must be analysed in its own right, and great care taken in comparisons and generalizations vis-à-vis other sectors.
Pastoralism
In many mountains areas animal husbandry is important. Some grazing lands are very remote and necessitate seasonal transmigration. It is also important to note that local institutions tend to dominate access to pastoral resources. For Nepal, past studies of local institutional and cultural practices are important in the light of changing policies and development practices. This is due, in part, to the relative inability of the Nepal government to implement new laws in remote pastoral areas.
Nor is Nepal able to exercise a strong voice regarding northern border closings by their more powerful neighbour, China. Twice in the past half century, the Chinese authorities have closed their border with Nepal to the seasonal migration of yak herds between pastures. This first occurred in 1959-60, following the Tibetan uprising and the Chinese occupation of Tibet. At that time, thousands of livestock reportedly starved to death on the Nepalese side of the border, unable to reach traditional Tibetan pastures. Gradually, the closure was relaxed, and some herds were built up again (but never to original capacity). Within the past few years, the Chinese have again closed their border to transhumance grazing, and Nepalese herds have been denied access, once again, to their traditional seasonal northern pasture resources inside Tibet. If the reverse had happened and Nepal had declared its border closed to Chinese herds, being in the weaker position, they would undoubtedly not been able to enforce it.[33]
Tourism
In some locations, the tourist industry is a major source of economic growth, but with very mixed distribution of the benefits. Thus, any contemporary analysis of this sector should, as with other sectors, identify and examine the key actors currently determining policy and practice. For example, the roles, actions and innovations of large and small businesses, parliamentary representatives of local people, and insurgents (e.g., the Maoists in Nepal) on the trek tourism sector will have to be analysed in the same way as we have done for the forestry sector. The government’s ability to raise substantial revenue from elite trek tourism in its mountain parks and from mountaineering parties seeking to climb Mt. Everest and other peaks will, in turn, affect policy practices in this area.
Alternative Forest Resources
In this study we concentrate on just one AFR - lokta bark - and describe in detail what has been occurring in the handmade paper industry over the last 25 years. Similar analyses should be done on other AFRs in order to inform policy and development practice.
In Nepal, it is interesting to note that a new set of actors has become involved since 2003 in association with a new aid project called the ‘Business Development Services for Non-Timber Forest Products Nepal’ (BDSNN), funded by USAID and implemented by Winrock International and IDE (International Development Enterprises). It will be interesting to see what role this project plays in building upon and strengthening the socially responsible behaviour found in the handmade paper industry and some emerging marketing institutional arrangements that are putting FUGs in direct contact with international buyers, and ensuring that value added stays in Nepal and that benefits are equitably divided. Hopefully, this project will be promoting effective poverty reduction and social inclusion goals in other sectors based on AFRs.
In light of the evidence that past aid-funded projects have been negligent in monitoring the effects of their involvement on poverty reduction and social inclusion, it is hoped that this time if no other actor takes it on, the civil society actors will begin early monitoring such outcomes.
As Nepal’s development actors consider ways to develop markets for forest resources and products, and ways to maximise value-added retention to poor groups, they will have to take into account other prominent actors in neighbouring countries. These include the regional competition with Nepalese resources and products, and those who influence policy processes especially the governments of India, China, Bangladesh and Bhutan, and also how the SAARC (South Asian Area Regional Council) deal with natural resource trade issues.
Watershed Management
There are several watershed management projects and programmes in Nepal. While the technical appeal of watershed management is very high, those who have worked in this area will know that each watershed is different, not only because of its agro-climatic characteristics and socio-economic features, but also because of the other government, donor, civil society and private sector actors present, and the social relationships that play out between them. One reason why special projects concerning the enhanced management of watersheds often have a limited life after the end of a development period is because of the special social conditions created by the project. The use of an actor-oriented approach, as illustrated here, to analyse watershed management projects would help focus attention on the role of different actors and whether the project is doing anything more than illustrating what can be done under the special conditions of a conventional action research project. Alternative approaches to watershed management would be to break out of the traditional action research mode and divert resources into supporting watersheds where local actions have already found ways to manage resources effectively and in socially responsible ways. After decades of special watershed projects in Nepal the country has in place plenty of cases where some positive impacts are happening and could be supported, and in some instances scaled up.
At the start of this study we argued that it would not be useful to look at access issues to natural resources in other countries in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan mountain areas, unless we had the time to find studies that have taken an actor-oriented approach to access, policy and development processes. As we did not have the resources to undertake such a review we have focussed our approach on case studies from Nepal. We now illustrate why we took this position with reference to the following brief examples.
India
It was recently reported in a Nepal-oriented report that the government of the new Indian state of Chhattisgarh (formerly eastern Madhya Pradesh) has had great success in improving the rural livelihoods of poor people in communities and in achieving long term social inclusion goals in four main river systems in the state. This has been achieved through the recent formation of a government-sponsored Minor Forest Produce Federation (MFPF) with a three-tier cooperative structure of 2 million forest resource (NTFP) gathers under 913 primary cooperatives and 32 district unions. Major employment activities include the collection of Tendu leaves and Sal seeds. Previously exploitive practices are now under control, and the new profit-sharing arrangements between poor collectors (70%), the MFP/forest management (15%) and for infrastructure development (15%), has worked well.[34]
The report of this programme has been highlighted ostensibly as an example with potential for application to Nepal. While this is not the place to discuss the merits of India’s MFPF-centred programme in any detail, we would advise extreme caution in considering such a programme in another country, outside of India (and perhaps even outside of the state of Chhattisgarh), where (a) official behaviours and rent-seeking activities of the bureaucracy are different, (b) actors in the private sector might be more powerful in opposing the effective implementation of such a scheme, (c) the social structures in local communities might not allow rural development to lead to the empowerment of typically marginalized social groups, and (d) the formal national laws and the way they are implemented might be quite different.
Cooperatives, for example, are well known for a wide range of management and corruption problems. Thus, it would be highly instructive to know, for example, what effective mechanisms have been introduced in the Chhattisgarh case that ensure an equitable and well-managed cooperative structure. And, it may be, for example, that this model is relevant only for the collection of Tendu leaves and Sal seeds in specific communities where the MFPF programme operates at this moment in history. On the other hand, parts of the model may have relevance to other Hindu Kush-Himalayan areas. All of this tells us that a location-specific actor analysis of the type we have suggested here, is necessary in order to see if any parts might be useful elsewhere, before it is seriously considered for adaptation to benefit the poor in other mountain communities.
There are, of course, a massive range of other government, legal, civil society and private sector features that make any analysis of policy processes and development practices very different between countries like Nepal, India, Bhutan, China, Pakistan or Bangladesh. While at one level this is obvious, at another level policy advocates and development planners often do not seem to give sufficient time and attention to understanding these things, nor on basing policy advocacy and new plans on adequate institutional analysis of this type.
Bhutan
Bhutan has some mountain natural resources that in agro-climatic terms are similar in some ways to the mountain agro-climatic features of upland Nepal. The diversity of socio-economic conditions and cultural distinctions in villages and at the national level also means that they, too, have to be taken clearly into account in any analysis. It is at the level of the structure and culture of government, however, where Nepal and Bhutan are so very different. Unlike Nepal, Bhutan has few civil society organizations, and no powerful grassroots federations like FECOFUN to substantially effect policy processes and development practice. And, unlike Nepal, the Bhutanese state has far more control over a whole range of economic activities relating to natural resources.
While there are some donor-supported natural resources projects in Bhutan, their organization and management practices (and sometimes their basic premises) are generally very different from those of Nepal. Indeed, the whole culture of access to and utilization of natural resources in Bhutan differs greatly from other countries. For example, the ‘environment’ and natural resources in Bhutan are addressed in policy and in practice in the context of a strong conservation ethic based, in large measure, on Buddhist beliefs and teachings. Indigenous knowledge is highly respected and traditional cultural practices and taboos, based on local people’s intimate and generations-old experience and on a rich spirituality bolstered by the strong role of the national ‘monk body’ (the religious establishment), have immense impact on issues of access to natural resources.[35] These types of issues illustrate that any simple analysis that does not put a great deal of emphasis on actor analysis would unwise in any country situations.
A feature of the current policy process in Nepal is the existence in the public domain of legitimate development narratives. While in some public fora, actors take extreme positions, and overstate their case, there is a healthy scepticism of such people. Furthermore, in planning and policy circles there are now less documents that promise far more than they can deliver. Some of this has come about because donors and government agencies are more accountable and are publishing and make useable documents available in a transparent and useable form, documents that in the past were considered for ‘internal’ use only.
The existence of the journal Forest and Livelihood (published in Kathmandu) is a good example of a concrete move to make information to inform policy making available. To make information available in the public domain, however, whether it be by government officers, NGOs, or donors means not only a commitment to democratic principles, but also a commitment of funds and time. We suggest that recent moves towards more documentation in the public domain has been very positive as regards change in policy processes in Nepal. They need more encouraging in the future. At the day-to-day level, it is not always obvious that there are pressures to reduce these types of democratic principles. For example, in the name of reducing ‘transaction costs’ and ‘management costs’, development actors ‘do not have time or skills’ to write articles or local user friendly documents that would inform policy and development processes. In some Hindu Kush-Himalayan countries, where the press is limited, or where academics and researchers do not have direct influence on policy processes, there is likely to be ‘sub-optimal’ policy practice as regards the welfare of poorer and marginalized groups.
The institutions of democracy are as much about the existence of journals, newspapers, donor country strategy papers, etc., as any theoretical concepts of voting and legal frameworks.
This study raises once again the recurring and contentious issue of the past, current and future role of social scientists in society and in development. In this study we have mainly used the perspectives and skills of anthropology and economics to understand why, after so many years of policy analysis, plans, projects, programmes, etc., on the part of a wide range of development actors, and mostly orientated towards poverty reduction and social inclusion, the outcomes appear not as high as the plans and projects promised. In some ways our ‘village’ of study and analysis is populated by the actors who make up the ‘development community’, and the poorer groups in society for whom their policies and plans are supposed to benefit. As this has been a study of past actions, we have had to ask questions such as: What were the reasons different groups have done what they did and why?
In looking at the behaviour of government officials we took the position of Keith Griffith in the mid-1970’s when, doing a similar analysis, he pointed out that rather than assume that government actors and those associated with them have policies and plans that they wish to carry out and often fail, assume that government actors are all the time achieving what they want to achieve, and that the way formal documents, plans and projects are used by the government and development community reflect the culture of the redevelopment community at the time. This type of social science analysis provides a sound institutional basis for understanding causes of poverty, social exclusion and possible ways of reducing it. In our study, we have carried the same type of analysis into the forestry sector of Nepal and are asking the question: What has been the role in the past of different development actors in opening up sustainable access to mountain natural resources to poor and marginalized groups?
As we have found, there have been few studies of this type done in the past, and we have had to make the best use of what data are available. Now we ask: What are the implications of what we have found as regards the inclusion of social science actors in development processes?
We are taking the issue further than the old advocacy for a ‘holistic and multidisciplinary’ approach to development. This type of advocacy has been around for as long as the study of development itself! How to put this into action has been the challenge.
In the case of forestry in Nepal there have been many training of foresters, bureaucrats, NGO staff and others in some types of social science tools under such headings as ‘participatory rural appraisal’, ‘stakeholder analysis’, ‘conflict management’, ‘conflict resolution’, ‘project cycle management’, etc. These are often conducted at universities and in research institutes, or in the training division of government ministries. There is now a pool of planners and development personnel who have been trained in these skills. As one observer has noted, however, this has also resulted in a ‘dumbing down’ of social science inputs into policy process and development practice.
For example, there many foresters in government who feel they know enough about the ‘social sciences’ to conduct institutional analysis, and to diagnose all types of social and technical problems and, therefore (they say) there is no need to bring professionally trained social scientists into the mainstream of policy and development processes. There is a whole range of reasons for this behaviour that we will not get into here.[36],[37]
The outcomes of some actors not having professionally trained social scientist within their organizations are quite serious. For example, some development actors such as major donors to the forestry sector have now recruited professionally trained social scientists to advise and negotiate donor contributions to partnerships projects. This means that, as a basis for collaborative work and partnership, there needs to be similar skills in government agencies in order for there to be a basis for discussions and the drawing up of agreed actions on both sides. The same argument goes for professional staff in NGOs and development projects. To some extent, in some development policy and practice arenas the days are over when project or a programme can be drawn up about increasing access to natural resources but does not mainstream experienced social scientist in its design and implementation.
While ways to address this issue of mainstreaming professionally trained social scientists within line agencies, and within other development agencies, will be different in each situation, the underlying issue still needs serious attention. To take up an earlier theme as regards ‘Ways Forward’, we would start in the Nepal context by looking at the way different development actors have already started to address this issue. For example some major bilateral (government) donors have quite dramatically changed their recruitment terms of reference (TOR) for staff that oversee work in the forestry and agricultural sector. Demonstrated social science skills take precedence over natural science skills. Government agencies in Nepal might learn from some of these government reforms. Of course we are not here talking about ‘old’ institutional methods for including social science such as putting the economists in the planning ministry, or saying that social scientists can be taken on within the expatriate staffing of donor-funded projects, or by associated NGOs. These old institutional models may have worked in some situations, but to some extent they have resulted in a type of ‘accommodation’ or ‘collusion’ to make it appear that substantial disciplinary interaction takes place, but much of the actual development policy and practice does not reflect that substantial inputs of disciplinarily trained applied social scientists.
Because it is such an important underpinning to any suggestions concerning Ways Forward, we include a recommendation to support effective measures for the devolution of power and authority. We explicitly support more attention to devolution, because some forms of decentralization are merely extensions of a ‘top down’ bureaucratic procedure.
To some extent, the rise of FECOFUN (Case Study 3) is an example of a democratic force that is helping to turn government policies regarding devolution of power into a reality. The rise of the professional business services organization HANDPASS in the handmade paper industry (Case Study 4) is another example of where devolution is taking place. In this situation, without explicit support from government, a guild-like business organization has evolved to address issues of how to manage and run affairs within their own industry. One of the reasons we found this latter institutional innovation interesting is because HANDPASS is explicitly addressing issues of poverty reduction, social inclusion and access to natural resources. There are many ways, therefore, that devolution of power and authority can be reflected in society. (For further insight into the subject, see Box 1.)
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Box 1. Enabling meaningful devolution Decentralization: ‘The relocation of administrative functions away from a central location.’ Devolution: ‘The relocation of power away from a central location.’ A key test in determining whether disadvantaged and socially-excluded groups (e.g., women, the poor, powerless minorities, etc.) have access to resources (natural, economic and political) is to determine whether or not they have the power to manage, use and share the benefits, without undue interference from government officials or local elites. Devolution in community forestry is the process of delegating or surrendering those powers of management, etc., formerly held by a central government to local user groups. It is usually associated with the parallel process of decentralization, which involves delegating the administration of the affairs of government and development away from the centre, which in Nepal means to local government units (the District and Village Development Committees). Decentralization is well along in Nepal, but the devolution of resource management affairs remains a contentious issue. The following statement describes the fundamental requirements for meaningful devolution to occur. It, and the definitions (above), are excerpted from Fisher et al (2000), emphasis added. While the statement was written vis-à-vis forest management throughout Asia and the Pacific, it has cogent application to the Nepalese situation. ‘Meaningful devolution requires both that local managers (be they local government units or local communities) have the capacity to manage forests and that those with current authority to make management decisions are prepared to transfer that authority. It would be naïve to think that all people with control over resources wield their power only for the common good. No doubt some people wish to retain their power over resources for their own benefit. On the other hand, many (probably most) resource managers are reluctant to devolve authority because they genuinely fear the outcome of uninformed management. A major prerequisite for meaningful decentralization and devolution, therefore, is to build levels of trust in local management. ‘Trust is a prominent issue. Organizational or social arrangements that increase people’s trust in each other are a major form of social capital, which is a resource that enables partnerships to work. It is essential to increase trust between foresters and communities as well as within communities; this will involve building local capacities and providing examples of effective local management to demonstrate improved capacities. ‘It is also essential that arrangement include safeguards (checks and balances). However, decentralization and devolution approaches should not simply allow forest departments to set and police the rules, and judge community performance. Forest departments must also be answerable to the communities, perhaps through third parties, special tribunals or other mechanisms. ‘The importance of monitoring the performance of community-level forest managers is often noted. It is important for at least two reasons. First, it provides checks and balances. Second, monitoring can help identify successful community-level managers and contribute, through the provision of good examples, to the building of trust and confidence. ‘Testing a community’s capacity to implement a management plan designed by someone else is not a valid measure of the community’s management capacity. In other words, it is difficult to assess community management capacity meaningfully if there is no real community input into decision-making. Monitoring the success of community-based management can only be meaningful when there is genuine devolution of authority. ‘...[I]t is also unfair to apply tougher tests to community-based activities than to conventional forest management. In this context, it is important to remember the high annual deforestation rates that prevail under the current management system.’ |
In the current context of government action in the forestry sector, the MFSC is following the spirit of the Decentralization Act of 1982 and has, with other ministries, decentralized many activities to the districts, but the MFSC appears reluctant to carry through with the full devolution as implied by the Local Self Governance Act of 1998. This is significantly different from other ministries in the Nepal government which have found room to manoeuvre in this regard.
One of the reasons we have used an actor innovations systems approach to this work is that it enables us to break out of the box of formal planners and policy makers. We are not constrained when examining issues of sustainable access to natural resources to looking only at the effects of formal policy pronouncements and the outcomes of projects and programmes. If we had followed that route we might well have ended up with a list of policy and project ‘evaluation’ findings and another list of ‘recommendations’ of what policy and projects should do. As it is, we have been able to investigate what has been actually happening on the ground in policy-making processes and in development practice. In this we have found that many significant things have happened outside of the spheres of formal policy and development planning. We suggest here that the culture of planning is changing, so as to encourage proactive searching out in the economy of positive institutional changes that are already taking place.
In some districts, for example, socially entrepreneurial district level officers in the forestry department are already finding ways to coordinate with FUGs, and with development agencies. New institutional ways of doing things are already on the ground and have been ‘tested’ for the socio-economic conditions of Nepal. (Better coordination at the district level is an issue that comes up time and time again in consultants’ reviews and evaluations of projects and programmes.) Similarly, gender equity is a major goal in some NGOs and government organizations. Here again, we find that FECOFUN has some very positive indicators on achieving these goals. FECOFUN has set itself up to bring effectives voices up from the field, and has developed innovative mechanisms to achieve their goals.
Most of these new institutional forms did not come from government policy and development projects. If donors and government are concerned about social inclusion and poverty reduction in the forestry sector, then pro-active surveys of where this is already happening may well reveal ways forward that could be facilitated and encouraged by policy and projects. To some extent ‘out there’ in some villages and natural resource settings there are already more equitable ways of managing natural resources. Pro-active surveys need to be initiated to learn from and act upon these institutional developments. This is not to say that there are not regressive social behaviours ‘out there’ where social inequity is being maintained, rather it is to say that effective ways forward to address social equity issues are already being found. Key actors, who influence progressive policy process and development practices, need to learn from and act upon these innovations coming from the field. And, by field level we do not just mean from the village level, but also other arenas of policy making and development project planning.
Some donors, for example, have found ways to support a more democratic policy discourse, while others are still preoccupied with an internal discourse and do not encourage their staff to monitor social equity outcomes and make these findings publicly available. While some of this suggestion might sound like collecting case studies of ‘best practice’, which will then be recommended for widespread use, what we are saying is something different. We are talking about a change of culture where by planners and development actors continually look outside of their limited view, to learn from positive innovations that are continuously coming from multiple sources in the world outside of the narrow development discourse. It is an orientation towards continually capitalizing on socially responsible innovations that are always emerging in society. Manuals of best practice have a ring about them of being yet another set of ‘recommendations’ of how things should be done and how others should behave, rather than of guides forward to learn and be creative.[38]
The word ‘entrepreneurship’ is often associated with profit seeking activities in the private sector. The notion it conjures up is of a person in the economy who is always seeking out viable opportunities to make profits. In the case studies accompanying this study, however, we see a large number of situations where there has been very effective social entrepreneurship. One example is of progressive foresters in the bureaucracy, along with donors and project staff, who nurtured and created effective legislation giving rise to the creation of a very successful forest user group approach to resource management and development. The cases studies also show how specific people in donor agencies have found ways to ‘implement’ projects in ways that have had a positive effect on reducing poverty. In other cases, such in the handmade paper industry, we see that private entrepreneurs are not pre-occupied with narrow profit-making actives, but are responsible for introducing institutional innovations to promote social equity.
In all these situations there may be others, of course, who are mainly interested in profits, keeping their jobs, not taking risks, in rent seeking, publishing articles for outside audiences, and so forth. The implications of this are that in any job situation, a personal commitment to finding room to manoeuvre to make progressive change is needed. There is always some room for manoeuvrability in any context. At a higher level, structures and reward systems need to be changed to encourage and promote such social entrepreneurial behaviour. For some organizations, whether in the private, civil society or government sectors, where promotions are based on seniority and gender, encouraging such behaviour may difficult, and in other organizations where directives come from the top, it may be difficult. Our case studies are testimony to the fact that social entrepreneurs in a wide range of contexts have found room to manoeuvre, thus enhancing access to those who need it most.
These people found ways to work in socially responsible ways and sometime change the competing cultures around them. Deeper investigation always reveals that things do not ‘just happen’, but that there are specific people or groups of people with a strong commitment to being social entrepreneurs, and to encouraging social inclusion. One way forward is to foster training in concepts of effective socially responsible behaviour. Such a course would include case studies that examine how and why past social entrepreneurs have been effective in finding room to manoeuvre to bring about change.[39] Such training would be different from manuals of ‘best practice’ that often do not address issues of how to find effective room to manoeuvre, or how to cope with the normal challenging situations in which people find themselves. They would also be different from ‘leadership’ courses, where the concern is with leadership per se, rather with entrepreneurial socially responsible behaviour in complex cultural settings.
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[32] JTRC 2000, Winrock
2002. [33] See Messerschmidt 2002b for a similar, but more detailed discussion of pastoral traditions being forceably changed in the face of new legislation and changes in land use patterns in northern India. [34] Boaz and Boaz, n.d., in Annex 2 of Nurse and Paudel 2003. [35] TFDP 2000: 57-60. [36] However, they are issues that a social scientist would have to understand and analyse before making any policy or development suggestions. For a discussion of costs and implications of the ‘dumbing down’ of social science inputs in institutions dominated by natural resources personnel see Biggs, Messerschmidt and Gurung 2003. [37] It is interesting to note the dearth of professional social scientists within Nepal’s Department of Forests and the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation. This issue was first formally discussed in the Master Plan for the Forestry Sector of 1989, whose authors noted then that there were ‘only a few economists, and no anthropologists, sociologists or socio-economists’ employed by HMG/N in this sector. The situation has changed very little since the Master Plan was written. The authors of the Master Plan point out that the only social scientists engaged in this sector are on project staff ‘but their total number is grossly inadequate. The success of community forestry,’ they go on to say, ‘depends on the understanding and cooperation of the rural population.... R&D involving the “social sciences” must be greatly expanded in support of community forestry fieldwork’ and that this ‘is an aspect of forestry research that must have priority’ (HMGN 1989). [38] For a cultural explanation for why improvements in project planning manuals do not necessarily get used see Biggs and Smith 2003. [39] Some of these issues are covered in Tendler 1997, Clay and Schaffer 1984, Uphoff, Esman and Krishna 1998 and Biggs and Smith 1997. |
