Chure Conservation Initiatives

Report prepared by
Ek Raj Sigdel

Interaction
District Forest Office Kanchanpur organised an interaction program on Chure Conservation at Mahendra Nagar, Kanchanpur on April 17, 2009. Far Western Regional Forestry Director Mr. Govinda Prasad Kafley chaired the program. A total of 47 participants, including six women attended the program. The participant represented District Agriculture Office, Kailali District Soil Conservation and Watershed Management Office, FECOFUN, Journalists, political parties, Terai Arc Landscape Program, WTLCP, District Forest Office, Chure conservation network, NGO and community forest use groups. Mr. Jaya Raj Pandey, resident of Krishnapur, Kanchanpur and Mr Surya kanta Sigdel, District Forest Officer, Kanchanpur presented working concept papers on Chure Conservation. Then, participants made comments on the papers and discussed on some Chure conservation issues.

Issues
After undergoing a thorough discussion, mainly chure conservation issues of the Kanchanpur district, the participants identified various chure management issues, like decreased wild animals and degraded their habitats and management of NTFP and eco-tourism for livelihood, flood, stone quarrying, over grazing, unplanned settlements and cattle sheds. Forest and water ecosystems are gradually covered by water hyacinth, Eupatorium spp, Lantena camera, and Mikenia micarantha. The major problems of Chure conservation include landslide and soil erosion, poor soil quality, recurrent flood, loss of agricultural productivity and changing water courses. Moreover, soil erosion ad land slide is conspicuous.

Under lying cause
Encroachment for cattle sheds, and agriculture land expansion has been in practice in the Chure Range for many years. Increasing trend of stone quarrying and tendency of keeping greater number of unproductive free grazing animals has caused has soil erosion and land slides. Likewise, poaching, and over utilisation of forest resources for firewood, timber and fodder has degraded wild animals' habitat and consequently reduced their numbers. Over and above, the law enforcement for discouraging illegal activities in the Chure Region is weak. Growing poverty incidence, lacking of specific policy and political commitment for chure conservation, increasing population, and growing number of unemployment are the major under lying causes of the ineffective conservation of Chure region.

Effect
Because of the aforementioned causes, as said by the participants, the water retention capacity of Chure has been decreased. Due to over utilisation of forest resources at foothill of chure, the north south movement of wild animals has become tenuous. People's dependency on Chure for various use have been on rise. To address those issues, the participants felt the urgent need of safeguarding the watershed and biodiversity value of the Churia and ensuring the sustainable livelihood of local communities. The meeting identified following activities to attaint the objectives.

Activity
District Forest Officer Kanchanpur has initiated to remove the unplanned cattle shed from the foothills of Chure for few months. With the mobilisation of local youths, a total of 126 cattle shed, including 36 permanent and 90 temporary have already been dismantled. It was estimated that some 800 cattle sheds are located in the Chure range. The meeting expressed commitment for making the chure as cattle shed free zone by two months.

Realising the trampling effect of unproductive free grazing animals on fragile chure area, particularly by goats, the meeting decided to replace those animals gradually by productive stall feeding livestock. Also, realised the need of planting fodder species in the chure area. In this regard, the Soil Conservation and Watershed Management Office Kailali, made commitment for availing necessary fodder saplings.

The meeting participants asked for more activities, mainly alternative energy, and community based anti poaching operation in chure range. They opined that the poaching of deer and leopard is still in practice in the chure range and beyond boundary. Therefore, anti poaching operation should go beyond Kanchanpur district and its chure area. Biogas and bio-briquattee should be promoted as an alternative energy. Promotion of bio-briquattee helps addressing the issue of invasive species.

Awareness program for controlling forest fire should be launched immediately. In addition, the government should make the law enforcement very effective and efficient for discouraging encroachment, illegal logging, forest fire and other unwanted activities. Further, the participants decided to plant various species like bamboo, amriso, salix, jatropha in chure area in this summer. Moreover, the participants were of the view that to conserve the chure effectively, it is urgent to transfer the ownership to local community by handing over it as community forests soon.

Government should prepare and implement an integrated management plan for chure conservation as soon as possible. To implement the plan, it is wise to create a conservation fund at the district level. Source of funding could be, paying environment services, carbon trading, CFUG contribution, donor supports and so and so forth. In this regard, the District Development Committee can initiate the process by keeping aside part of the forest, stone and gravel revenues for the development of churia region. Further, participants from the downstream also expressed their commitment for their continuous support to conserve chure. Because, they got realise that one of the causes of the last years devastating flood was the result of chure degradation.

According to the meeting participants, the conservation and livelihood improvement activities should be implemented simultaneously in the Chure range. Forest and NTFP based micro enterprises should be promoted. In addition, some part of the chure range vouchsafes higher eco-tourism value. Therefore, tourism promotion and development activities should be implemented timely. In this regard, efforts for attracting private sectors should keep vigilant. Over and above, the government should come with a very clear policy and plan for conserving chure area.

A separate multi stakeholder’s forum to facilitate implementing the integrated development plan of the churia should be provisioned. In this regard, role of the District Forest Coordination Committee should be made more effective. In addition, the government should initiate to elect local authority as soon as possible so that the chure conservation work can be made further effective. Likewise, efforts should be made to integrate the chure conservation agenda in the upcoming constitutions.