Nepal: Hills leasehold forestry and forage development project (HLFFDP)

Forest areas in Nepal decreased at a rate of 1.7 percent every year between the end of the 1970s and the mid 1990s. Land degradation leads to soil erosion spelling disaster for poor rural households who are forced to spend more time collecting fodder and fuel which in turn leads to a drop in agricultural labour supply, agricultural production and food security. However, leasehold forestry, an innovative approach introduced by IFAD in the early 1990s, has the potential to reverse this trend. Forty-year leases are provided to groups of households giving them user rights over plots of..