Evaluating the Impacts of Forest Management Policies and Community-Level Institutions in the Buffer Zone of Chitwan National Park, Nepal

Over the past 25 years, Nepal's forest management policies have led to a significant recovery of forest cover in the buffer zone surrounding Chitwan National Park. This reversal follows an initial decline after the implementation of the Master Plan for Nepal’s Forestry Sector (MPFS) in 1989. The study analyzed Landsat imagery from 1989, 2005, and 2013 to compute the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), revealing that community-based forest management has been effective in conserving forest resources across 36 village development committees (VDCs) covering approximately 1,267 km². These findings highlight the success of decentralized forest management and offer a model for sustainable forest conservation efforts.

Stapp, J. R., Lilieholm, R. J., Upadhaya, S., & Johnson, T. (2015). Evaluating the Impacts of Forest Management Policies and Community-Level Institutions in the Buffer Zone of Chitwan National Park, Nepal. Journal of Sustainable Forestry, 34(5), 445–464. https://doi.org/10.1080/10549811.2015.1025080