People's livelihood and their perception towards forest degradation in central Nepal : The households' perspective

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Forests have been a key component of rural livelihood in Nepal for centuries. The villages around the Chitwan forest corridor depend largely on natural resources including forest which provide basic products for their livelihood. In this study, a field survey of 100 households in Chitwan in 2007 was conducted to analyze the people’s livelihood strategy and their perception towards forest degradation. Results showed that households' was dependent on multiple livelihood categories with 98% belongs to food crops and 92% to livestock husbandry. Almost 34% of household income was shared by agriculture (crop and livestock) and 20% by remittance. Data further revealed that income distribution was somehow more equal with Gini coefficient 0.25 than the distribution of landholdings with 0.37. However, average per capita income of households was only Nrs. 21,117.00 (about US $ 293.00) lower than the national standard and 33% of the households were below the poverty thresholds (Nrs.14, 942/annually) with the poverty gap index 0.0945. Further, 85% of the respondents mentioned that the present status of forest is degraded however 83% of households are not participated in forest management due to low awareness is still prevailing in 82% households. It could be a reason the traditional dependency on forest resources has been shifting towards the small scale farming, business and service because of the shrinkage of forest resources in the study area.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Abstract
• 1. INTRODUCTION
• 2. METHODS AND MATERIALS
• 3. RESULTS
• 4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• REFERENCES