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Conflict resilience among community forestry user groups: experiences in Nepal
Author(s) -
Nightingale Andrea,
Sharma Jeevan Raj
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
disasters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.744
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-7717
pISSN - 0361-3666
DOI - 10.1111/disa.12056
Subject(s) - livelihood , community forestry , psychological resilience , resilience (materials science) , community resilience , political science , economic growth , forestry , socioeconomics , environmental resource management , environmental planning , sociology , geography , forest management , psychology , engineering , social psychology , agriculture , economics , physics , archaeology , redundancy (engineering) , reliability engineering , thermodynamics
This paper explores the impact of violent conflict in Nepal on the functioning of community forestry user groups (CFUGs), particularly those supported by the Livelihoods and Forestry Programme, funded by the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID). The key questions are: (i) what explains the resilience of CFUGs operating at the time of conflict?; (ii) what institutional arrangements and strategies allowed them to continue working under conflict conditions?; and (iii) what lessons can be drawn for donor‐supported development around the world? The study contributes to other research on the everyday experiences of residents of Nepal living in a period of conflict. It suggests that CFUG resilience was the result of the institutional set up of community forestry and the employment of various tactics by the CFUGs. While the institutional design of community forestry (structure) was very important for resilience, it was the ability of the CFUGs to support and use it effectively that was the determining factor in this regard.